Pathology
is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word pathology
also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of
biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the
context of modern medical treatment, the term is often used in a narrower
fashion to refer to processes and tests that fall within the contemporary
medical field of "general pathology", an area which includes a number
of distinct but inter-related medical specialties that diagnose disease, mostly
through analysis of tissue and human cell samples. Idiomatically, "a
pathology" may also refer to the predicted or actual progression of
particular diseases (as in the statement "the many different forms of
cancer have diverse pathologies", in which case a more proper choice of
word would be "pathophysiologies"), and the affix pathy is sometimes
used to indicate a state of disease in cases of both physical ailment (as in
cardiomyopathy) and psychological conditions (such as psychopathy). A physician
practicing pathology is called a pathologist.